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This is my… 5th? 6th? Ludum Dare. I’ve never really completed anything worthwhile for the compo, I wonder why I even bother to join every few months. It’s never been a success but I happen to have saturday clear this weekend. So yeah, if it happens it happens. I’m thinking LibGDX + GIMP, but Unity has some nice new 2D features.. well anyways, good luck to all participating!!

To be honest I really have no motivation this time. Maybe I’ll surprise myself? Uh, I just want to get it over with, I tend to fantasize about the end product being all awesome and never get past basic gameplay. I’ll probably upload a black and white pong or something… something finished to my name.

this is the first LD where I’ve been struck by sudden inspiration. I’m getting right to work. I’m looking forward to the end product. It’s more work then I initially was planning to do, but I ain’t gonna give it up

Wow, the time has gone by so fast. It’s that time of the year again, here we go…

I do the LD each time, but I rarely finish or even get close to an acceptable point. Different issues each time. Blender export issues, or collision issues, or flashdevelop acting up. Streamline, strip down, simplify, I’ll have to REALLY think about those things before it gets out of hand.

Since I’m a novice programmer and not like you code-junkies (brave souls you are, opening Eclipse and going at it) I’m going with Unity or FlashDevelop + FlashPunk. Both have their ups and downs, Unity is fast to create art, worlds, and prototype, but the number of pitfalls for me is far less with a good ol’ 2D framework.

Arsenal:

GIMP 2.x – my favorite handy dandy image editor

FlashDevelop – IDE of champions!

FlashPunk – flexible fast fun framework. Why not?

SFXR – (if I even get that far) sounds and music, ugh, but I’m gonna have to.

Pro Tips: (not actually pro, use at your own discretion)

You know that awesome idea you had? strip that down to 1/10th of what you pictured. Now cut that in half. Remove Art / sound expectations by roughly 45%, and now you have a workable goal. I am GOING to finish SOMETHING this time, even if it’s babbys first pong with some deeply religous symbolism.

Friday night is IMPORTANT: Don’t procrastinate. This is when you have all your creative / physical / mental energy, don’t set up a sprite or two and think you’re gonna have a bunch of time tomorrow. That’s not how it works. Get at least the gameplay down friday night.

Taking you more than 2-3 hours on a bug? skip it. Move on to the next thing, art, levels, or whatever. You have to finish.

my past three have been failures! not enough time, I made them too complicated and in the end they were lazy slops of mess. This time I’ll be sure to have a full packaged game, by slimming it down, using simpler art, and of course my programming skills have improved since then so hopefully I’m more prepared.

Programming: FlashDevelop + AS3 + Flashpunk library

Art: GIMP + Flash CS5 if I’m feeling vector

Sound: SFXR is the usual tool. inudge sounds good for a musically-handicapped person like me

I have a basic movement system, basic combat system of some sorts (yes, it’s a beat-em up, I”m redeeming my last LD) and some form of animation /graphic template going. the hardest park will be getting all the artwork in.

So here I am, ready to waste a friday night by myself craving the thrill of making a bomb ass game in 48 hours. I must have miscalculated the time…hasn’t all the other LD’s started on Friday? Maybe my time is just messed up, I live in Texas so…lol I don’t even know what time standard that is. If this actually does start on Saturday, this essentially turns into a 24 hour jam.

I dunno, I’m just not feeling it this time around, which is weird, because this is like “teh biggest LudumDare evah!!!” So let me hear some words of wisdom from my fellow LD’ers yes?

I think it’s because I’m going to be relatively busy over the weekend, so I need a good way to manage my time (this kind of scares me, because I hardly got one level of my game out last time, with literally non-stop work)

Looking forward to my next LudumDare in a few weeks!! The last one was awesome, but i could’ve done things better as far as time management, but now with my experience from last I hope this game to be more sucessful tahn the last (I have to beat place #541 this time :p)

Tools of choice

-Unity game engine, hurrah!

-Illustrator or Gimp for Graphix

-Sound:????????

I feel kind of cheap using Unity to make my game, it seems like everyone else writes their own engines using their own libraries, lol I can’t even fathom that.

This was my first entry, and boy was it a crazy experience. Next time I will definitely create something simpler, and alot less focued on the nice shaders. I did a timelapse for some time, but then I just debunked it because I wasn’t getting much done during “streaming hours.” I have come to learn alot about game design in general, but more importantly what and what not to do during crunch time. Time for analysis!!

The Game Itself:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/50008295/WebPlayer.html

The game itself is pretty basic, a 2d platformer where you maneuver a guy through a set of rooms. Not original in the slightest, but I wasted enough time on crazy ideas. Performance wise it ate up alot of draw calls (I had no time for serious optimization) and the WebPlayer seems a little shaky because of it. I think the graphics are nice and fit quite well. Not really a whole lot of fun, besides walking around you try to push some crates around to solve some sort of puzzle. As for theme, I actually tried to cook up something good. The lighting, sounds, and layout were all part of some creepy-alone atmosphere. Of course, it is a 48 hour game experiment and I couldn’t put as much time as I wanted into it.

The Problems (many)

-Why is my game so damn short? This was simply due to not enough time. The level was made on the spot in Sauerbraten, ( an FPS game). I had to play it safe because I didn’t know, for example, how far the player could jump while creating it within the FPS game. I couldn’t keep exporting, so the level design, in an attempt to be puzzlish, is just downright annoying and sloppy.–

Why are my walls all Glitchy? -Although I came up with a good solution for collisions, I blame it all on sauerbraten. Each material represented a different surface type, and missing a surface in sauerbraten meant glitchy walls. It’s hard to explain, really. The controller is fairly decent, it uses realistic physics and the controls are tight, while mantaining a pseudo-realism feel. But alas, poor level design just ruins it. –

Um……Y u give us no controls? Well, I wanted you to feel like you were really alone, with no guidance to help you. Apparently, most people can’t even get past the first room! (why don’t you go challenge yourself now? 😉 ) laglaglaglag poor optimization, sorry guys.

What I learned:

DO NOT RELY ON CLEVER LEVEL DESIGN : Your level will get nowhere and it will be extremely short much like mine. I cannot stress this enough, I didn’t believe it at first. Also, don’t rely on 3rd party games to do your dirty work.

BE ORIGINAL/SILLY/WEIRD. DONT TAKE YOUR GAME SERIOUS: Why do I say this? in an attempt to make a serious (hears laughing) story based platformer, I ended up with a barely playable graphics prototype. I would much rather tenderize chicken upside down while tenderizing my shoelace than 30 seconds of pointless rooms.

X FACTOR: My game lacked this as well. What will make your game stand out? is it original? Clearly, this is what makes the 48 hour game fun to play with the limited time.

GRAPHICS? DEPENDS WHAT YOUR GOING FOR : Everyone likes nice graphics, just remember, they eat up alot of time.

——Conclusion——

I really enjoyed the Ludum dare, although I was quite stressed at times. I really need to make my game more user friendly. Even more importantly, next time I will take my time and simplify everything. I will just get the basis of my entire game as simple as possible, and If I have time, then I’ll add cool features.

I can’t believe it. Only 8 hours left. I am extremely disheartened, I really thought I had something going for this game. I know now I won’t be able to finish it, I’ll barely be able to get a demo out in time. Although I will finish this after the compo is over. Being a pseudo-perfectionist, I did everything wrong I could’ve done:

more than halfway through the competition. I’m trying my best, most of the coding is done, graphics are coming along though not finished. I would post a screenshot but I really need to step it up in order to finish. I will have no time for polishing I tell you :/.Levels are taking WAY longer than expected. I forgot one of the big Ludum tips, “If you need good level design for your game to be fun, you’re done for“. Damn it.